UID:
almahu_9949315537202882
Format:
XIII, 223 p. 6 illus.
,
online resource.
Edition:
1st ed. 2022.
ISBN:
9783031009174
Series Statement:
The New Middle Ages,
Content:
English Women's Spiritual Utopias, 1400-1700: New Kingdoms of Womanhood uncovers a tradition of women's utopianism that extends back to medieval women's monasticism, overturning accounts of utopia that trace its origins solely to Thomas More. As enclosed spaces in which women wielded authority that was unavailable to them in the outside world, medieval and early modern convents were self-consciously engaged in reworking pre-existing cultural heritage to project desired proto-feminist futures. The utopianism developed within the English convent percolated outwards to unenclosed women's spiritual communities such as Mary Ward's Institute of the Blessed Virgin and the Ferrar family at Little Gidding. Convent-based utopianism further acted as an unrecognized influence on the first English women's literary utopias by authors such as Margaret Cavendish and Mary Astell. Collectively, these female communities forged a mode of utopia that drew on the past to imagine new possibilities for themselves as well as for their larger religious and political communities. Tracking utopianism from the convent to the literary page over a period of 300 years, New Kingdoms writes a new history of medieval and early modern women's intellectual work and expands the concept of utopia itself.
Note:
Chapter 1: Mirrors of our Lady: Utopia in the Medieval Convent -- Chapter 2: These Most Afflicted Sisters: Old and New Futures in Exiled English Convents -- Chapter 3: Not Yet: Aspirational Women's Communities Beyond the Convent -- Chapter 4: Convents of Pleasure: English Women's Literary Utopias.
In:
Springer Nature eBook
Additional Edition:
Printed edition: ISBN 9783031009167
Additional Edition:
Printed edition: ISBN 9783031009181
Additional Edition:
Printed edition: ISBN 9783031009198
Additional Edition:
Printed edition: ISBN 9783031031755
Additional Edition:
Printed edition: ISBN 9783031031748
Additional Edition:
Printed edition: ISBN 9783031031731
Additional Edition:
Printed edition: ISBN 9783031031724
Language:
English
DOI:
10.1007/978-3-031-00917-4
URL:
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-00917-4
